Not all puffy tacos are created equal, and with almost 80 years under its belt, Teka Molino seems like it’s just going through the motions. Still, if you get just one taco here, make it puffy.

Tacos: Dance with the molino that brung you, I say. The fried masa that wraps a beef puffy taco tastes better than the bland, wet picadillo inside it, even dressed up with lettuce, tomato and cheese ($2.75). A tomato braise helps the chicken puffy taco, but that same braise dissolves the tortilla into masa molecules ($2.75). The two-bite Nickel Taco reminds us there was a time when Teka Molino charged a nickel for a puffy taco, even if this one costs $1.50 more. I’d recommend the carne guisada taco here — with green peppers and gravy dark as a mole — if the flour tortilla around it rose to the same level ($2.20).

Tortillas: The shop mills its own corn for masa that puffs up tall and strong for tacos and good little tortilla cups filled with guacamole or beans and cheese. Teka Molino also fries its own chips: strong, salty, greasy, free. Avoid the flour tortillas. Even handmade, they’re just paper tigers next to their maíz masters.

Mike Sutter is the restaurant critic and a food writer for the Express-News. Before joining the Taste team in 2016, he was a restaurant critic, editor and designer at the Austin American-Statesman and editor of the website FedManWalking.com. He’s been a guest on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio, the Cooking Channel’s “Eat Street” and KUT’s “Field and Feast.” His work has appeared on BonAppetit.com and in The Guardian. He’s won national awards for criticism and design from the Society for Features Journalism, the National Headliner Awards and the Society for News Design. Among the things he’s expensed for work: A Ouija board, a live chicken and plastic army men.